So you’ve decided to make an Ubuntu promotional video

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Some of you may have already seen our new 11.10 video. For those who haven’t, we’ll catch you once you’ve enjoyed it :)

Made in Ubuntu using only open source tools – indeed only an open source font! – I’ve made the source assets available so readers of the blog and beyond can make their own versions to promote Ubuntu. Here’s what you’ll need to do to get started.

2. While that’s downloading you can also install Pitivi, the video editor I used, which is easily found in the software centre.

3. Uncompress the zip file and take a look at the contents.

The Assets folder contains, as the name suggests, all the video and PNG files I used to create my video. The what’s new .xptv file is the file that Pitivi uses to pull all the assets together and make the video and the template.xcf file is the GIMP file I used as a template for the text slides that appear in between the video clips.

4. Open the What’s new 11.10v2.xptv file and you’ll have to tell Pitivi where all the assets have gone. Just point it to the Assets folder and it’ll do the rest reconstructing the video.

At this point you have two choices. You can either reuse my video assets and just translate the text panels that come up in between the videos or, if you’re feeling really daring, you can use mine like a storyboard and re-record the videos.

Translating the text panels is the simplest route, simply open the template in Gimp and then save copies as PNG files with the same names as I’ve given them. Once you hit render Pitivi will pull in the new PNGs and, boom, you’ve got a video with translated text panels. Simple!

Recording your own videos is a little more time consuming. The way I did it was using a command line tool called recordmydesktop, available again in the software centre, which I found was pretty straightforward to use. It allowed me to specify what area of the screen to record from and could be launched either in the terminal or, when I didn’t want the terminal in the launcher, using ALT-F2 and then killing the process once I’d recorded the features I wanted to share.

The only other things I did while recording was make sure that any time you’re showing the clock it’s set to 11.10 and that the wifi and volume are always at maximum and bluetooth is always on.

We’d really like to translate this into as many languages as possible and Paolo, long time Ubuntu supporter in Italy has kicked us off with Italian translation of the video and we’d love for you guys to try translating it into your own languages, maybe even go and record your own videos. Paolo’s video is below, thanks again chap, we’re hoping you’ll inspire others!

Could you please ask to have the text for this made larger? Yes, I can zoom the page, but since my text is set for 16 font size already, I should not have to zoom 6 times more to see that size show up. Why should those with visual disabilities have so much difficulty reading Canonical websites, when accessibility is *so important* to Ubuntu?

Charlie: making text more readable is always a good idea. The introduction title cards shown at each section of the video are already quite large (~57 pixels on this monitor); is this what you’re referring to?

Site-wide font size should first be defined as a percent. Subsequent font sizes should be defined with ems. The body element of this page has a font-size of 12px, which forces this small size on everybody. Try changing it to 75%; since most browsers have 16px as their default font-size, this will work out for most people, and adjust for people with larger default font sizes.

Other elements that have font-size defined as 12px should be changed to 1em. Other elements should be changed accordingly; h1 for instance (currently defined as 36px) should then be 3em, and so on.

It’s kind of disappointing to see an Adobe Flash object embedded in this post. Any chance it could be replaced with the HTML5 version? Or at least you could add a link to a webm version for those of us who’d prefer to keep the Adobe Flash plugin off our machines.

Hi Ian, I come to Canonical Design to ask for the Ubuntu´s Impress Template used in the Ubiquity Slideshows showed during the install process of Ubuntu.
I teach in an University ad I have been looking for that template since Ubuntu 11.04 but I could not find it.
So, can you Canonical Design Team share a link to download that Impress´s template or send me it in an email?

Before doing anything with this beautiful video, can I record my own videos to include “real localization” inside it? I’ll do same things, use same programs, visit same websites. I hope the color of your answer will be green. Thanks for advance.